Iraqi Women on the World Learning International Visitor Leadership Program Meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Written by Marilyn Saks-McMillion, Assistant Director and Senior Program Officer, World Learning Visitor Exchange Program

World Learning’s International Visitor Leadership Program seeks to promote understanding through personal and professional interactions.  Visitors on this program are current or potential leaders in their country and visit U.S. organizations and meet with U.S. visionaries in an effort to promote diplomacy and understanding.  In April, this State Department-sponsored program hosted a group of Iraqi women leaders who began their exchange by meeting briefly with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

Their three-week program, entitled Women as Social, Political and Economic Leaders, was designed by Marilyn Saks-McMillion, Assistant Director and Senior Program Officer of World Learning’s Visitor Exchange Program.  After spending a week in Washington, DC, the group traveled to New York City, then to Sacramento and San Francisco and finally concluded their program in the Dallas/Forth Worth metroplex. Highlights of the program in Washington included briefings at the State Department, Justice Department and the Pentagon, and a half-day training session on local governance at the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). 

While in New York, the group traveled to Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics for a half-day seminar on women in politics followed by lunch, where they met former Governor Christine Todd Whitman and other distinguished academic researchers.  They also met with officials at Johnson and Johnson to learn about programs that promote and mentor women in a large corporation.  Back in New York City, they met with a Member of the New York City Council, visited the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and learned about the Girl Scout movement, as well as had a meeting with representatives of Working Mother magazine and the National Associate of Female Executives.

In Sacramento, they visited the local county elections office and met with organizers of a local Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to learn about raising public awareness and research funds for the battle against breast cancer.  The following day, they participated in the 5K run and addressed the crowd of 24,000 expected runners and supporters.  In San Francisco, their program included meetings at a business incubator that helps fledgling women entrepreneurs, a trip to the Napa Valley/Sonoma area to visit women-owned wineries and the opportunity to participate in a local volunteer activity for the homeless.

Their visit to the United States concluded in Dallas and Fort Worth.  They visited the headquarters of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to learn more about raising awareness of this important health concern, funding research and treatment and doing international work.  The group visited an all-girls public charter school designed to teach leadership to girls in grades 6-12 and the small town of Waxahachie to meet members of the Junior Service League.  Finally, as a surprise, the delegation met former First Lady Laura Bush, to highlight her longstanding volunteer work with the Susan G. Komen organization.  Cultural events included a visit to the National Cowgirl Museum, a visit to a western art museum and the Fort Worth Stockyards with its city-owned herd of longhorn cattle, capped off with an evening rodeo at the Cowtown Coliseum.